VM, Ubuntu, Octave, nargin error

1

Hello all,


I am a Mac and installed Ubuntu14, Octave4, and PTB3 on a VirtualMachine. I followed the Linux PTB installation instructions but when I do ScreenTest this is what I get:

error: 'nargin' undefined near line 36 column 7

error: called from

    __unimplemented__ at line 36 column 3

    ScreenTest at line 12 column 5

error: scope not found!

error: called from

    ScreenTest at line 12 column 5

error: scope not found!

After this happens I cannot exit Octave or do anything for that matter. It does not matter what I type I get the error: 
'nargin' undefined near line 36 column 7
error: called from
    __unimplemented__ at line 36 column 3
error: scope not found!

 I have tried many different suggestions from different forums and nothing seems to work.

2
How can you have Octave-4 on Ubuntu 14 (which 14.04 or 14.10?)? Octave-4 is not provided or supported by Ubuntu 14.x? That said, running PTB in a Virtual Machine is pretty pointless, as the VM won't provide the timing precision and low level hardware access and graphics features that PTB needs to do much useful work.

The error messages don't make any sense, so i don't know - something is wrong. But the most easy way is to install ptb3 for Linux+Octave via the NeuroDebian repository, as recommended on our Downloads page. Setup there is as plug and play as it gets, so i'd try that.

-mario

XX---In PSYCHTOOLBOX@yahoogroups.com, <consuegra.yunier@...> wrote :

Hello all,


I am a Mac and installed Ubuntu14, Octave4, and PTB3 on a VirtualMachine. I followed the Linux PTB installation instructions but when I do ScreenTest this is what I get:

error: 'nargin' undefined near line 36 column 7

error: called from

    __unimplemented__ at line 36 column 3

    ScreenTest at line 12 column 5

error: scope not found!

error: called from

    ScreenTest at line 12 column 5

error: scope not found!

After this happens I cannot exit Octave or do anything for that matter. It does not matter what I type I get the error: 
'nargin' undefined near line 36 column 7
error: called from
    __unimplemented__ at line 36 column 3
error: scope not found!

 I have tried many different suggestions from different forums and nothing seems to work.

3
XX---In PSYCHTOOLBOX@yahoogroups.com, <kcave@...> wrote :

I'm getting similar error messages. Octave is fine until I run a command like sca, and then it is as if it has lost all its commands. The only way that I have found to get out is with control-D. This had made it impossible to use PsychToolbox on this machine, so I am very interested in understanding what is going on.

This system is not using a virtual machine. It is an HP 5750 (AMD processor) with a graphics card added, running Ubuntu 14.04-LTS. I installed octave from the Ubuntu Software Center, and got version 4.0. I installed PsychToolbox in two different ways, first from the Ubuntu Software Center, and then from the NeuroDebian site, but got the same nonfunctional result both times.

-> 14.04 LTS doesn't ship Octave-4, at least not automatically without extra intervention? Are you sure you don't use Ubuntu 15.10?

-> Try if a "sudo apt-get install liboctave-dev" helps. That should help if you got PTB via DownloadPsychtoolbox/UpdatePsychtoolbox. If you got the latest one from NeuroDebian then this shouldn't be neccessary but should simply work.

There was a bug i introduced recently (sometime this year) wrt. Octave if that liboctave-dev package is missing, but our installer/updater should tell you this new requirement for an extra package if something goes wrong, at least if your PTB is up to date.

I believe this to be fixed in both our distro and NeuroDebian?

-mario



Interestingly, a few weeks earlier we set up another system (HP 7900, Intel processor), also with an added graphics card, also with Ubuntu 14.04-LTS. At that time, the Ubuntu Software Center gave us Octave 3.8.1, and things seem to be working fine on that system.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Kyle Cave
4
The problem was not liboctave-dev, but your comments helped me to see where the problem was.

Some time ago, I had experimented with Octave 4.0, which I got from some other repository. I eventually decided that it was safer to uninstall this version of Octave and to reinstall using the Ubuntu Software Center, so that I would be getting a version that was known to work with Ubuntu. However, my previous install made changes in /etc/apt/sources.list, and because of this, the Ubuntu Software Center was actually getting Octave from the other repository rather than from the Ubuntu repository. After reading your comments, I poked around a bit and discovered the changes in /etc/apt. Once I undid those changes, I was able to install Octave 3.8 from the Ubuntu repository, and the problem went away.

Many thanks for your comments.

Kyle


---In psychtoolbox@yahoogroups.com, <mario.kleiner@...> wrote :

XX---In PSYCHTOOLBOX@yahoogroups.com, <kcave@...> wrote :

I'm getting similar error messages. Octave is fine until I run a command like sca, and then it is as if it has lost all its commands. The only way that I have found to get out is with control-D. This had made it impossible to use PsychToolbox on this machine, so I am very interested in understanding what is going on.

This system is not using a virtual machine. It is an HP 5750 (AMD processor) with a graphics card added, running Ubuntu 14.04-LTS. I installed octave from the Ubuntu Software Center, and got version 4.0. I installed PsychToolbox in two different ways, first from the Ubuntu Software Center, and then from the NeuroDebian site, but got the same nonfunctional result both times.

-> 14.04 LTS doesn't ship Octave-4, at least not automatically without extra intervention? Are you sure you don't use Ubuntu 15.10?

-> Try if a "sudo apt-get install liboctave-dev" helps. That should help if you got PTB via DownloadPsychtoolbox/UpdatePsychtoolbox. If you got the latest one from NeuroDebian then this shouldn't be neccessary but should simply work.

There was a bug i introduced recently (sometime this year) wrt. Octave if that liboctave-dev package is missing, but our installer/updater should tell you this new requirement for an extra package if something goes wrong, at least if your PTB is up to date.

I believe this to be fixed in both our distro and NeuroDebian?

-mario



Interestingly, a few weeks earlier we set up another system (HP 7900, Intel processor), also with an added graphics card, also with Ubuntu 14.04-LTS. At that time, the Ubuntu Software Center gave us Octave 3.8.1, and things seem to be working fine on that system.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Kyle Cave